Community Feedback - New Community Forum

[skier]

Just some thoughts on the new Community Forum.   Change is good but:

* There does not appear to be any way to go back and edit a Forum Post after it has been Posted.   Sometimes we don't always type what were thinking and only see our mistakes after the topic or response is posted.  So why is there no way to go back and edit our posts?

* There's no internal messaging system for emailing other Forum Members.  Seems everything must be posted to the public.

* The choice of  Personal icons are a bit limited.   Boring.

*  No feature for automatic signatures like the Online Merchant Network offered.

*  Organization of Forum Topics is a bit confusing, but, that just something one has to get used to as this is a new application.

*  Seems there was no thought or was there about  transferring any credit for contributions to the Online Merchant Network to the new Community Forum.   Everyone now using this new Forum has to start from scratch.   Which leads to this question, is the Online Merchant Network going away?

* Don't know if this good or bad but, in order to participate in this Forum, one must first login to their PayPal Account.   This is forcing folks to open a PayPal Account if they want to participate.   Personally, I'm OK with this but, it does have the possible potential to scare some folks and leaves lots of other lurking in the shadows.

Regards,

skier

[skier]

Just another thought or two on this New Community Forum.    As professional who supports an online business, I personally feel there is a need to focus on helping other small online businesses.   If you peruse through the Forum Categories, there is one Category for your Businesses however, many folks who post there don't appear to even be actual online business owners.   I have to clearly say, there are way too many "whiners" who post nothing but negative comments of no value.  These folks just waste our time.

Perhaps there should be two Communities, one for the professional online business owners and/or the professionals who support those businesses and another totally separate community for the whiners.   That way the folks who really do know what they are doing can help others without having to sort thought all the weeds.

Regards,

skier

[smallHOST]

Skier, you have voiced part of what I am getting at... This new forum is all complainers, no small business resources.

What I miss the most are the Growing Your Business forum. The vast resources section was also a huge, well... resource. It included

• Online Payments
• Marketing and Sales
• Security and Fraud
• Operations and Finance
• Technology and Integration
• Merchant Connection
• Webinars

Finally, the Merchant Connection was an awesome place to get ideas, and see what other merchants are doing.

If you took the entire online merchant network and just renamed it to Paypal Community Forums, it would be perfect. I am not feeling this new format at all...

[smallHOST]

I forgot one thing... If the Online Merchant Network is not to be used anymore, why is registration still enabled on it, even though all the threads are locked? If it is being phased out, registration is not required. The forums can be read as a guest.

[skier]

As previously mentioned, PayPal should really consider a forum for ONLY online business owners and the folks who support those businesses.  There really needs to be a place where the professionals can work together.  Recently I received a couple of emails from former members of the Online Merchant Network.  These folks are real online business owners and used to participate in the Online Merchant Network.   They told me they no longer plan to participate in the new Community because of the glass half empty attitude of this new Community.  It's not good for any of us to loose that type of hands-on expertise and experience. 

Regards,

skier

[Amanda411]

Hi All,

Thanks for your feedback! I appreciate that you took the time to make your suggestions. We are taking this information into consideration as we continuously work on making PPCHF better.

Amanda

[skier]

Nice.  Looking forward to see some forum improvements.

In the mean time, if you want to learn or need help with your online business, please ask. 

Don't let the whiners rule this forum or slam you.  Whiners don't have a clue and blame everyone else for their lack of intellengence.  People choose to use PayPal, they can also choose to not use PayPal. 

Regards,

skier

[skier]

One more item concerning the forum function and the Insert Code feature.

If you insert example code that has an email address, you get a warning message that email addresses are not allowed.   Kind of silly as PayPal item button code uses an email address for "business" value variable.   One work around is to enter the email address with spaces, i.e., "youremail @ youremail.com".     This works however, then you have to explain to who ever you're trying to help to go back and remove the spaces, else the example won't work.  This really puts a dent in posting example code for folks.   We did not have this issue with Online Merchant Network.

Just my thoughts ....

Regards,

skier

[OnlineMerchant]

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@skier wrote:

As previously mentioned, PayPal should really consider a forum for ONLY online business owners and the folks who support those businesses.  There really needs to be a place where the professionals can work together.  Recently I received a couple of emails from former members of the Online Merchant Network.  These folks are real online business owners and used to participate in the Online Merchant Network.   They told me they no longer plan to participate in the new Community because of the glass half empty attitude of this new Community.  It's not good for any of us to loose that type of hands-on expertise and experience. 

Regards,

skier

---

What happened to the Online Merchant Network?  Are you aware that this site, and all of it's content is GONE???

http://www.onlinemerchantnetwork.com/

I've been a paypal member for 11 years, and as a merchant, I used the above site almost every day, and now the site is gone! There was no notice that this site was going to be shut down, and there was invaluable content on this site.

I'm shocked and concerned why this site has vanished.

Paypal also did a feature on our company on this site. There were pictures, and and quoted interview from me. We were one of the "featured merchants" of the month, in a section called, the Merchant Connection.

We had this link on our website and on many forums/message boards. Our customers loved reading this link about us, since it showed paypal recognized us, and kept many potential customers at ease. This website is no gone and the write-up is now gone. It used to be located at:

http://www.onlinemerchantnetwork.com/blog/article%3fblog.id=MerchantConnection%26message.id=115

I need to find a way to get the article content about our company back. I'd like to at least save it and make a copy to have on hand.

Amanda, I actually think it was you that nominated us as a merchant to  feature on the Online Merchant Network in the "Merchant Connection". I need to somehow get that content back.

[Pestman]

 Papal needs to have someone from the company to Handel problems with papal. It is frustrating to have to go to a public forum to talk to someone from papal.

I had no idea that transferring funds from my checking account to my papal account would take 8 days (yes a week end is in there). It may **bleep** up my transaction with a person I am buying from.

Funny how I can pay from my checking account through papal and get it done right away, but transferring funds to papal to pay for the same thing takes 8 days? That is messed up AND you can't cancel it 3 seconds after you find out.

Is this a scam from papal to sit on my money?

I am sure the rest of what papal offers is helping people pay surely, but you really need to be more forthright so papal does not become the problem instead of the solution.

Right now for me, Papal is the problem.

I know, I know, there is nothing you can do. I learned a lesson the hard way. Figure out a different way to pay then papal.